... to this stuff:

• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. I love it. It's quirky and fun and goes great with reading blogs. As any review will tell you, there's some Talking Heads and V.U. in there, sure - but just a little bit, not too much. And if the odds of such a thing happening weren't close to zero, I'd say the singer had spent some time listening to Nod. Regardless of the influences, the songs are catchy, quick and fun. It's a new favorite. My only complaint is that the record isn't even 25 minutes long. Feels like it just gets going, and then it's over.

  Five laquos «««««.

  Update: I just noticed why the record seem so short: iTunes failed to download three of the tracks.

• We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls. This band does a great job of sounding like the whole of modern college rock; all the songs are instantly familiar, with one difference: the singer's heavy Scottish accent. And since I, as an American, have three references for such an accent (Groundskeeper Willy, Mike Myers ' various characters, and The Proclaimers) the accent is a bit of a novelty. Still, I like it. I don't know if it will stay interesting, but for now, it's fun. Also this reminds me of a nearly-unknown band called "Twin A" - they grew up listening to the same influences, I presume.

  Four laquos ««««

• Foxboro Hot Tubs - Stop Drop And Roll!!. In the words of singer Billie Joe Armstrong, "The only similarity between Green Day and Foxboro Hot Tubs is that we are the same band". And yeah, it sounds just like Green Day - so much that I wish this had been the next Green Day record. It's a lot more fun than "21^st Century Breakdown", even if half the songs sound like they were err... heavily inspired by other garage/punk songs. It took me a while to get into it, but a few days in the car CD player did the trick. It's good driving-around music.

  Four laquos ««««